


Gifts Come In Packages, Mister Doyle

by arsenikitty



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Dating Doyles!, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenikitty/pseuds/arsenikitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sadie shares some of her backstory with Frank. Trigger Warnings for blood, awful parents, and drugs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gifts Come In Packages, Mister Doyle

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fever dream of a fic. I wrote it whilst on the plane to NYCC after another emotional headcanon adventure with The Maddies.

Sadie Parker was seeing ghosts.  
  
This was not unusual. She had always seen ghosts, ever since she was a little girl. They'd never frightened her; ghosts were usually very friendly former people, driven to loneliness by the fact that they were invisible to the general populace. When they realized that Sadie could see them, they were quite personable indeed.  
  
This had not always been the easiest thing to deal with.  
  
\--  
  
When Sadie was young, her grandparents had called her abilities a gift. Of course, they were ghosts, so she considered their opinion biased, sweet though it was.  
  
Sadie did not think of it like a gift for a long, long time.  
  
When she had first toddled out of her room, proclaiming that Grandmummy and Grandpapa had just done the most _wonderful_ reenactment of Puss in Boots for bedtime, her parents had smiled, told her that she must have had terrific dreams indeed, and put her back to bed. But as she kept doing it, their faces slowly began creasing with worry.   
  
One night Mrs. Parker had asked Sadie, "Darling, what sort of ring does Grandmummy wear? I always forget."   
  
Sadie had answered without hesitation, having been admiring them only the night before. "The big ruby-and-gold one, Mummy? Or the pearl one, like your necklace?"  
  
As soon as she'd seen her parents' faces, she knew she'd done something wrong.  
  
They sat down with her the next day and told her, under no uncertain terms, that she was simply not to see her grandparents anymore.  
  
"But why?" Sadie asked, crying. "Grandmummy and Grandpapa love me."  
  
Her mother shook her head. "No, darling," she said gently, stroking Sadie's hair. "They don't."  
  
(Sadie could never find it within herself to forgive her mother for those words, even after reconnecting with her grandparents.)  
  
*  
  
As a precocious adolescent, her parents' plan of attack moved from "pretend you do not have this inclination" to therapy. With therapy came medication that Sadie absolutely refused to take, no matter how scary her parents got.  
  
She tried to be good. She tried to not see the nice people who waved hello, or told her which young ladies it would be good for her to befriend, or helpfully pointed out where empty sitting rooms (and, not so much later, liquor cabinets) were. She wanted her parents to love her the way other parents loved their children -- or what she'd read about as parental love, anyway. High society did not excellent parents make. But as long as she kept whispering to people that were, to them, invisible, she was forever an outcast in her own home.  
  
The therapists told Sadie that what she saw were hallucinations of a very high grade, that she was a schizoid, a word she did not understand until later when she looked it up in the big leather dictionary her father kept in his study. When she figured out its meaning, she huffed and decided that all therapists were idiots, and ever after sat through therapy sessions with a mounting cynical patronization that was impressive in so young a lady.   
  
One night during dinner when she was twelve, Sadie lifted her glass to wash down a peculiarly dry pork chop. A former butler, now a spirit that doted on the young miss, whispered in her ear that she ought not to do that -- he'd seen the missus slip some powders into her glass before she'd arrived.  
  
The glass broke in her hand and the windows rattled. Her mother looked positively terrified as Sadie looked on, venomous but sedate, as blood dripped from her hand onto the pristine lawn tablecloth. All of the paintings in the dining room fell off the wall at once with a resounding clatter. Her father leapt up and pointed wordlessly in the direction of her room, his finger shaking ever so slightly.  
  
All of the candles went out as Sadie stood and smoothed her dress, being careful not to get blood on it. When she looked evenly at her parents, the light bulbs fizzed out. "How _dare_ you even _think_ to do such a thing to your own daughter," she said, clearly and calmly, before excusing herself from the room and returning to her own.  
  
She bandaged her own hand, put on her nightgown, and climbed into bed with a volume of E. Nesbit tales.   
  
*  
  
The moment she turned thirteen, her parents shipped her off to boarding school in England. It was an old brick institution, meant to house people like Sadie and teach them to mute their inclinations. That was where Sadie met Donna, her accent determinedly Midwestern America, her parents concerned for her spiritual safety ("Protestants, y'know!"), her behavior delightfully scandalous to a girl who'd done her best to remain ladylike and sedate her whole life.  
  
Boarding school was the best thing that had ever happened to Sadie. She made a friend.  
  
*  
  
When she returned to the States, age eighteen (her parents had requested she stay at school for the holidays all five years), she was sure of herself. She knew her talent was nothing to be feared, and was firm in that knowledge. She was not sure, however, that people's reactions to it would not be as emphatically awful as her parents'. She was quiet about her inclination towards the supernatural, though loud about her drinking, partying, and bedroom proclivities.   
  
Her parents found her vulgar. Society found her charming. And so did Frank.  
  
\--  
  
"Frank," Sadie whispered. "Can you see the couple over there, in the box opposite ours?"  
  
It was the beginning of intermission at the opera house; this evening, _The Magic Flute_. Frank raised his opera glasses as the house lights came back on and peered over the crowd of people. "I don't believe so, darling. Can you?"  
  
Sadie looked about before answering and chided herself. They were in a private box, as usual. "Yes. They look lovely, a sweet older pair. They must adore this show to come so far for it." She gave them a small wave, and the delighted couple waved back.  
  
"Sadie-love, I've been meaning to ask." Frank leaned forward in his seat and offered her his flask. "Why is it that you are so _skittish_ about the supernatural in public? Did you have a bad experience with a ghost at a party or the like?"  
  
"Oh no," she told him honestly. "The only time I ever had an issue with _anything_ malevolent was when I met you, darling. Ghosts are usually so terribly sweet."  
  
"Then why?" he asked as she took a drink. "I mean, you weren't _raiding chupacabra nests_ at fourteen and _getting hacked up_ by _angry pixies_ \-- unless there's something I don't know about your time at boarding school."  
  
Sadie giggled and gave him back his flask. "No indeed, darling. Nothing quite so rugged as your storied career." At his quirked eyebrows, she continued with a light laugh. "It's just that, well, my parents were not _terribly_ pleased when my -- shall we call it a _talent --_ manifested."  
  
"Oh." Frank spent a moment processing this. "Why's that, love?"  
  
"Well, my family came over to the New World on the Mayflower, you know, darling. Old money, some of the oldest still in New York. Mother and Father are very proud of that. But we didn't originally come over to be bankers and socialites, back then we had a trade. We were witch hunters."  
  
Frank's mouth made a small o. "I see."  
  
"Naturally, when Mother and Father realized that I had this talent, they insisted I do everything I could to not use it at all. They were not pleased _at all_ with my speaking to long-gone family members -- or with passed-on help, for that matter."  
  
" _Not use your gift?_ But -- that's unconscionable! It's a part of who you are!"  
  
Sadie's heart skipped a beat when Frank called what she had a gift.   
  
She smiled thinly. "It was a part of me that simply _needed to go_ , in their eyes, Frank. They did quite a lot to try and tamp it out of me -- therapists, psychiatrists, a mix of good old Jewish-Catholic guilt, medication --"  
  
Frank interrupted her. _"Drugs?"_  
  
Sadie waved her hand. "It was a ham-handed attempt on my mother's part. She should have known better."  
  
Frank looked positively volcanic with rage, but stayed quiet so as to hear the rest of her story.  
  
"Their final attempt -- besides the guilt, which is of course ongoing -- was _boarding school,_ which you so thoughtfully mentioned. It was a special school, for children who displayed," she swallowed before using the word, " _gifts_ such as mine. That's where I met Donna, you know."  
  
Frank blinked. "Surely she has not _always_ been a vampire."  
  
"Of course not, Frank darling. But how do you think she got that way, and found David? Similar to how I am a sort of switchboard for ghosts and spirits, Donna is something like that for creatures, the corporeal kind. They are _drawn_ to her, they always have been." She paused for a moment. "That may be why we became friends, actually. I suppose I might count as a corporeal creature of some sort."  
  
"I didn't know there were such people." Frank was terribly interested. Sadie could see him thinking about how such a person might have been used to ferret out creatures by the Church. Then he noticed Sadie's raised eyebrow and blanched. "Oh, _surely not._ "  
  
" _Really,_ darling, you must learn to have a better sense of self. Steady work in the supernatural community is so hard to come by, as PJ will remind you, and you were doing quite well for yourself commission-wise, even after you began working solo."  
  
Frank sat back, surprised. " _Well_ then. We are _quite the combination_ , love."  
  
Sadie made an amused sound. "Indeed, darling. As were Donna and I, in our heyday. London was quite the playground for two spirited girls with an interest in the things that ran in the dark."  
  
Frank waggled his eyebrows meaningfully.  
  
"Well yes, plenty of that, I assure you, darling. But when I came back home, there was still... sort of an aura of menace around what I can do. So I do it carefully, and quietly, if I can." She gave a delicate little shrug and took a sip from his flask as the house lights dimmed again, and snuggled against him for the final act.  
  
*  
  
"I'm glad that boarding school was their final option, and not burning you at the stake, love," Frank commented as they left the opera arm-in-arm.   
  
Sadie smirked. "I'm quite sure it crossed their minds. But they wouldn't dare, not after what happened with the medication."  
  
Frank raised an eyebrow, but upon seeing the glint in her eye, did not comment.  
  
They were quiet for a while, taking their time walking in the crisp night air. Frank gently put his hand over Sadie's on his arm. "Sadie-love, I just... You should know that you never have to hide your gift from me. You never have to hide  _anything_ from me."  
  
Sadie looked at him. His face was so serious and earnest, his brown eyes were full of such sweetness and concern, and she felt like the ground had absolutely gone out from under her and all that was supporting her was Frank's arm in hers, and that was all the support she would ever need. She knew unequivocally for the first time in her life that someone loved her wholly.  
  
She nodded. "I do."  
  
~  
  
At their wedding reception, Frank referred to Sadie's inclination as a gift. He always did; after spending such a long time honing his craft, such raw power was exactly that to him. He appreciated it.  
  
Sadie's father gave him a disdainful stare. " _Gifts_ come in _packages_ , _Mister_ Doyle."  
  
"I think Sadie's quite the whole little package, _Mister_ Parker." He gave the older man a lusty wink and was rewarded with a look of disgust and utter mortification before he strolled away, whistling.  
  
From within a nearby throng of well-wishers, Sadie Doyle smiled.  



End file.
